


Cuffed

by INMH



Series: trope-bingo fanfiction fills 2019 (2nd Half) [6]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Drama, Gen, Handcuffed Together, Humor, Pre-Canon, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 07:49:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21012296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Pre-game. Hudson and John Seed find themselves in a disagreeable situation.





	Cuffed

“You know, if you’d believed me we wouldn’t be in this situation.”  
  
Deputy Hudson growled and, purely for spite’s sake, gave her wrist a sharp yank; John yelped as, taken off-guard, he stumbled and nearly bashed his head on the hood of her truck. As they were currently connected by a pair of handcuffs it nearly brought her down as well but, well, she could handle that if it meant seeing John Seed fall on his smug face. “Shut up, Seed. I don’t need this right now.”  
  
“Ooh, very _mature_, Deputy,” John sneered as he got to his feet. “What next, you going to stick a wad of gum in my hair? Shove me in a locker?”  
  
“Your hair’s not long enough for that to be funny,” Hudson grunted as she twisted around, trying to get a feel for their surroundings, “But if you want to direct me to a random set of lockers someone’s set up in the middle of the forest, I’d _love_ to shove you into one.”  
  
‘If you’d believed me’- fuckin’ _please._  
  
Like John being a slimy, untrustworthy motherfucker wasn’t the reason for all of this.  
  
Hudson had come on them by accident, because she’d been driving through the Whitetails and come upon some guy she didn’t recognize holding John Seed at bay with a shotgun a little ways away from the road. And when one comes upon a guy holding a shotgun to one of the Seed brothers, the natural conclusion was to assume that said brother had finally succeeded in pissing off someone who preferred letting their weapons do the talking. And when John had fervently assured her that he had done nothing, that the guy was attacking him for no reason, Hudson had taken it with a grain of salt. It wouldn’t be the first time a member of Eden’s Gate had claimed to be the victim when they’d started the fight.  
  
“Sir, lower your gun please,” She’d said as she’d stepped forward.  
  
And the guy had obeyed.  
  
The worst part was that Hudson had kept an eye on him. She had kept a safe distance between them, and she’d had her gun out just in case, just until she was certain everything was alright- but the bastard had been _fast_, and one cop trying to divide her attention between two potential hostiles was never something that was going to end very well.  
  
The long and short of it was that the bastard had gotten the jump on her, and now she and John Seed were handcuffed to the front bumper of her truck.  
  
“I know this is probably a shocking concept to you and most of the county,” John sneered as he tugged at the cuffs, fruitlessly testing to see if he might be able to slip free, “But my family and I do not sit around plotting your downfalls twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. We have our own business to attend to.”  
  
“Yeah, well, you attend to a lot of _other _people’s business too,” Hudson snapped. “And so I can’t say it was the most shocking sight in the world seeing someone holding you at gunpoint. Kinda surprised it hasn’t happened already.”  
  
“Oh really? You’re surprised? You know what, Deputy, I can’t say I’m terribly _surprised_ that you feel that way, considering-”  
  
John started rambling, and Hudson proceeded to tune him out. She checked the cuffs too, even though it was pointless. These weren’t some kid-grade metal handcuffs, built to be slipped in an emergency: The metal was solid, the lock was tight, and the chain was short enough to stop them from moving very far. Hudson turned and made an attempt to reach for the door, hopefully to the partially-opened window; but, as she’d suspected, it was way too far out of reach. She sagged against the hood, disappointed. This stretch of road they were on was fairly secluded, and while they were reasonably close to the road, the hilly and curved nature of the pavement meant that someone could easily pass right by them without noticing.  
  
_Damn it._  
  
Hudson opened her eyes and started to focus on their surroundings, hoping to see something that might be of use. There was some dirt, naturally, as well as a couple of rocks and sticks, and right across the road-  
  
Hudson froze.  
  
“Seed.”  
  
“…I mean _really_, is it such a tax to consider that I _might_ be telling the truth?”  
  
“_John._”  
  
“I know I’m a lawyer, but come _on_-”  
  
“_Shutthefuckup!_”  
  
Hudson hissed it so savagely that John finally frowned and paid attention to her. “What?”  
  
She nodded, slowly, towards the other side of the road.  
  
Slinking through the underbrush across the pavement was a large, prowling cougar; she could see its eyes, staring right at them, glinting in the bright light of the morning.  
  
John saw it now. “Please tell me that’s Miss Mable’s.”  
  
Hudson shook her head slowly. “Peaches wears a collar. And she wouldn’t be stalking us like that.” Peaches was tame enough that she was willing to come right up to most humans, especially ones that weren’t armed or otherwise behaving in an overtly threatening manner.  
  
Wild cougars didn’t give a fuck.  
  
John swallowed. “I don’t suppose they teach you cops how to survive a cougar attack?”  
  
“No more than they teach you lawyers how to survive a shark attack.”  
  
John’s mouth fell open. “Wow. We’re being stalked by a cougar and you _still_ managed to shit on me for being a lawyer.” He paused. “They don’t need to teach us how to survive shark attacks. They avoid lawyers out of professional courtesy.”  
  
Hudson’s eyes rolled shut.  
  
“**_Rwwrr_**…”  
  
“_Fuck off!_” Hudson barked, waving her un-cuffed arm as wildly as she could. “_Go away!_” She kicked awkwardly at the dirt, trying to spray it in the cougar’s direction. It flinched back, but didn’t retreat. “Wave your arms and yell,” She instructed John. “Be aggressive. Make a lot of noise.”  
  
“I thought they didn’t teach you how to survive cougar attacks,” John grunted as he reluctantly started waving his arm.  
  
“The Sheriff’s Department didn’t,” Hudson said flatly. “My father did.” He’d been the one to teach Hudson how to hunt- and how to deal with the big, dangerous sort of animals you’d find when you were hunting smaller, less dangerous animals. “_Go away! Scram! Beat it!_”  
  
John, in a stroke of (Hudson would grudgingly acknowledge) genius, picked some sand and rocks off the ground and hurled them at the cougar’s head. It immediately yowled and started pawing at its face before turning and slinking back down the hill on the other side of the road.  
  
Hudson and John breathed a sigh of relief. “We need to get out of the cuffs before it comes back,” Hudson whispered.  
  
“No shit.”  
  
Hudson glared at him, and then yanked her wrist again; this time, John did hit his head on the hood of the truck.  
  
For the next twenty minutes, they tried their best to yank on the cuffs, to pick the locks, to even work the bumper loose. Nothing worked: Without the right tools, relying on sheer physical power, there was just no way to escape. “Fuck!” Hudson snapped, head dropping to lean against the bumper. She and John were sitting now, exhausted and overheated in the midday summer humidity.  
  
“We’re going to be stuck here until someone drives by, or until that cougar comes back to kick our asses,” John muttered.  
  
“I’m almost hoping for the cougar,” Hudson grunted, figuring that John won’t be able to keep his mouth shut for that long.  
  
Suddenly, from inside the truck, the radio crackled to life:  
  
“_Deputy Hudson?_”  
  
“Pratt!” Hudson gave a small, reflexive lunge for the door; obviously it failed miserably and left her with a strong ache in her cuffed wrist.  
  
There was a momentary pause, and then the call came again: “_Deputy Hudson, please respond._”  
  
As the seconds ticked by, Hudson could almost see the confusion and concern on Deputy Pratt’s face: Hudson was usually pretty quick to respond to a radio call.  
  
“_This is Deputy Pratt, calling for Deputy Hudson. You there, Joey?_”  
  
Hudson beat her free fist against the hood. “Motherfucker!”  
  
“This is good.” When Hudson stared at him, John shrugged. “I mean, they’re looking for you, right?”  
  
“Unless he thinks I’ve stopped for lunch,” Hudson grunted. “I never _don’t_ answer the radio, and nothing ever-” She stumbled on the words, abruptly remembering Danny. “-_almost _nothing ever happens in Hope County, so he’ll probably assume I’m just busy and leave it be for a while.”  
  
“Did anyone know where you were?” John pressed. “Did they know where you were going, in case they get worried and decide to come looking?”  
  
Hudson thought for a moment, and then sighed. “Not really, no. I didn’t check in before jumping out to deal with you and the other asshole. Does your family know where you are?”  
  
“No, I was out on- wait, ‘the _other_ asshole’? Really?”  
  
“_Focus!_”  
  
“No, Deputy, they don’t know where I am- only where I was going, and it’s nowhere near here. They won’t be driving up this way looking for me, not on purpose.” He settled back against the truck. “Guess we’ll have to hope that Deputy Pratt intuits that there’s a problem and comes looking for you.”  
  
Ah, yes, that would be wonderful: Staci Pratt coming upon Hudson and John handcuffed together to the bumper of her truck. Sweet fucking Jesus, she would _never_ live it down. Pratt would be reminding her of this until the day the meteor came and ended them all. Working with him would be impossible.  
  
They needed to get un-cuffed.  
_  
Now._  
  
“We need to break the cuffs,” Hudson whispered, scanning their surroundings again. “We don’t have anything sharp to pick the locks. So we have to at _least_ break the chain so we won’t be stuck together. What do you have on you?”  
  
John patted his pockets awkwardly. “Of course the bastard took our guns, or we could have just shot it,” he grumbled.  
  
“Oh, no fucking way,” Hudson snorted. “Our hands are way to close, and we’d be shooting at close range against metal. Way too big a chance that one of us catches the bullet when it ricochets.”  
  
“I have a lighter,” John declared, slapping it down on the hood. “My car keys, and a clip for the gun that I no longer have. That’s all I’ve got.”  
  
Hudson would just _love_ to read ill-intent into the fact that John was carrying a separate clip for his already-loaded handgun (it implied that he planned to do enough shooting to require two clips, and he sure wasn’t going to be hunting deer with a handgun), but she couldn’t: This was Hope County and John Seed was a member and lawyer for a very unpopular religious group. At least he hadn’t gone Full Boshaw and bought himself a flamethrower.  
  
She emptied her pockets too, and the results were just as disappointing: A pack of gum, a half-empty packet of cigarettes, and grocery list. Hudson kept her wallet in her pocket and assumed that John had done so as well. “Well, this isn’t promising.”  
  
“You’re not wrong.” John blew out a sigh, looking over the items. “We can try pulling off the bumper again.”  
  
“It’s not going to move.”  
  
“Maybe we can- I don’t know- dislocate our thumbs and slip them off?”  
  
Hudson sighed. “That’s a myth. It honestly doesn’t work. Hurk Jr. tried that once and it just- it didn’t work out.”  
  
“Hell.”  
  
They stood in silence for a time, thinking. Hudson was tired, wanted nothing more than to sit down and relax for a bit- but the awkward way they were cuffed made sitting more uncomfortable than not. And as there was no telling how long it would be until they were un-cuffed, she would probably be standing for-  
  
“**_RWAARR!_**”  
  
Hudson and John snapped to attention, turning and finding- of course- what was most likely the exact same cougar they’d encountered earlier, now only a few feet away from them. It was close enough that kicking out or waving their arms might end in the cougar lunging instead of retreating, and they both pressed up against the hood of the truck as best they could.  
  
“Oh boy,” Hudson whispered as the cougar crept forward, posture for all the world like it was about to lunge for them. “Not good. _Not_ good.” She saw John slowly reach for his keys. “No, no, no movements, no sudden movements!”  
  
“Just wait,” John murmured, carefully lifted the keys. “Just wait…” A piece of plastic dangled from the key-ring, and when he pushed it-  
**_  
BEEEEEEP! BEEEEEEP! BEEEEEP!_**  
  
From John’s truck, parked several yards away, an alarm sounded and the lights flashed. Being a newer model than Hudson’s, John’s car had some of the bells and whistles that hers didn’t, including a remote alarm system that was very, _very _loud. The cougar whipped towards the truck, and then scrambled off across the road again without waiting to see what else they would do.  
  
After a moment or two, John hit the button again and the alarm fell silent.  
  
Once again, they heaved a sigh of relief.  
  
“Smart,” Hudson whispered. “That was smart.”  
  
“It’s been known to happen,” John said, head resting on the truck’s hood. He still had his keys clutched in his hand, and it took a few minutes of staring at them for Hudson to come to a realization.  
  
“Seed,” She said.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“You’ve got a lot of keys.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Which of them are the least important to you?”  
  
John straightened up, frowning as he examined the key-ring. “Uh… This one.” Hudson took the key-ring from him and carefully used the indicated key to start working on the lock on the cuffs. They didn’t have a paper-clip, a hairpin, or any other small, thin things to work in the lock, but maybe a key would be enough to at least _weaken_ the lock until it gave a bit, and that was all she would need…  
  
Hudson worked for a few minutes until finally- _finally_\- the key hit something just right, and the cuff loosened slightly. Just enough for Hudson to slip her hand through and get free. “_Yes!_ Oh, thank Christ!”  
  
John quickly tugged the empty cuff from around the bumper and raised his arms. “Finally! Let’s get out of here before that fucking cougar comes back.”  
  
“No kidding,” Hudson said, reaching to her pocket for her-  
  
For her…  
  
Wait.  
  
Shit.  
  
“He took my keys,” Hudson whispered, dragging her hands through her hair. “The bastard took my keys.”  
  
John smiled at her, and _Christ_ she wanted to punch him. “I’d be happy to take you anywhere you need to go, Deputy,” he said smoothly.  
  
She was going to scream. She really was.  
  
“Just… Just bring me to the Sheriff’s Office,” Hudson said raggedly as she stomped over to John’s truck and swung herself into the passenger’s seat. “We’re filing a report about what happened, I’ll get Pratt to come back with me to the truck, and then you can get back to doing whatever the hell it is you do.”  
  
“Of course, Deputy,” John said magnanimously as he flipped his sunglasses down over his eyes and got into the driver’s seat. “It would be my pleasure.”  
  
“I’m sure it would.” _You smug prick,_ Hudson added silently.  
  
It was better than being found handcuffed to him.  
  
But still, Pratt was never going to let her live this down.  
  
-End


End file.
